


The Beginning, Part I

by TheoMiller



Series: The Doctor Who Rewrite [3]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Doctor Who Rewrite
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-09
Updated: 2015-06-19
Packaged: 2018-02-04 00:58:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1761235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheoMiller/pseuds/TheoMiller
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Weeping Angels are only the beginning of the problem the Doctor must face when museum workers disturb their quantum lock.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"The house is being auctioned off, but they want to donate these to the museum," said Chloe. "Any idea what era they're from?"

"Impressionist? Expressionist? I dunno. But it's creepy. It looks like an expression of religious disillusionment, though," Skylar said.

Chloe snorted. "It looks like a bloody difficult loading job," she said.

"If we get it done quickly, we can stop for a cuppa and you can flirt with the cute shop boy."

"Shut up," she replied, and gripped the handle on the loading trolley. "Can you push the statue backwards? I can't get leverage."

Skylar complied, and she carefully rolled it back and directed it toward the door. "Whatever happened to interns doing this lark?" Chloe complained.

He grinned. "Budget cuts."

"On unpaid interns?"

"...staff cuts? I don't know, maybe it's because they noticed there's nothing else for us to be doing?"

"It's hardly my fault everyone is dead tired of hearing about Sutton Hoo," she said.

He nodded sympathetically. "Here, let me get that."

"Sky, you're all bone, you'll break," she said, wheeling the trolley away. "I'll get this one into the lorry, you load the other trolley. Do not move it without me."

Skylar rolled his eyes but didn't protest. Instead, he went back to examining the stone of the statues. It was almost flawless. Well, he only said _almost_ because he'd worked with enough art geeks to know nothing is flawless, but he couldn't actually see any. "Right then," he said, and turned to fetch the second trolley. The third angel was gone.

"What in the hell - " he broke off upon sighting the dusty wooden floor. It was undisturbed all around the patch where the third angel had been. "CHLOE!" He yelled.


	2. Chapter 2

The Doctor came rushing into the house where Sally Sparrow had once fought four weeping angels. The artron energy was consistent with the angels being active. But the Doctor had frozen them, they were gone, there was no way—she bumped into a man, who yelped and jumped back.

"Oh, holy hell, I was not expecting that," the man said, even as he straightened back up and held out a lady's compact towards the Weeping Angel was standing. "Listen, mate, can you pop down the street and buy us a stranding mirror?"

"Uhhh," said the Doctor. "I'm here to trick the angels into standing in a circle and then dash off to save their victim."

"Yeah, see, that circle thing is not a good long term solution," the man explained patiently.

"What are these things?" A woman asked in a much sharper voice, and the Doctor turned to see a redhead holding up another small mirror to an angel. "And more importantly, how do we stop them for good?"

The Doctor frowned. "You know, usually I'm the one to rush in with a clever, quirky solution to stop aliens with little to no technology. I don't know what exactly I do when humans fix things for me."

"Okay, lady, this is not fixed. So why don't you come up with a clever and quirky situation that doesn't involve me and Sky standing here forever!"

The Doctor spotted the trolley and grinned. "I can do that!" She said. "Right, so, Mr Sky (“—it’s Skylar—”), I need you to keep holding that mirror while I wheel this angel into my spaceship. Then I'll get a standing mirror and put it in a controlled environment while I get the others. Think you can handle that? Because if this thing gets loose in the TARDIS, it'll be virtually unstoppable."

"Ugh," said Skylar. "Don't say 'if this terrible thing happens', it's like asking for the universe to muck things up."

The plan, surprisingly, went off without a hitch. The Doctor dusted her hands together when she was once again standing on the pavement beyond the TARDIS. "Well, that's taken care of. I'll go drop the angels into a black hole and get the lorry driver back from Ancient Rome and then you can be off on your way."

"Did you say Rome?" Skylar asked.

"Yep, the angels send people back in time, seriously, I'm not a madman--"

"Oh, he's not in the least bit concerned about whether the reverse Medusa monsters can time travel, he's drooling over Rome," said Chloe. "He's an expert on Rome. We're from the British Museum."

There was a pause, and the Doctor glanced over her shoulder at the TARDIS. "You could always... come with?"

Skylar made a high pitched noise and headed straight into the TARDIS.

"You two are incredibly calm and it's disconcerting," the Doctor admitted to Chloe.

"We were there for the orange planet in the sky, the talking rubbish bins with laser whisks, the moving mannequins, the Titanic in the sky, the weird gas thing, the time Type A people all went to the roof..."

"I tied Chloe to a chair," Skylar said. "She never got to the roof. Oh, and, Clo—there was Cardiff."

“ _Cardiff_ ,” Chloe repeated darkly.

The Doctor glanced between them. "Are you two—"

"No," they said in unison.

"Not a couple," Chloe said. "Just lifetime friends, flat-mates, and coworkers."

"Can we go to Rome now or are we going to have to explain platonic love to an alien with a spaceship?" Skylar asked, a distinct whinging tone to his voice.

“Need to drop off the Weeping Angels first,” said the Doctor apologetically, and he scrunched up his face in disappointment before nodding. “Right, then! Careful now, don’t touch any of the controls, except that one, Chloe, push that button.”

“The one that says don’t push?” she said.

“Yep.”

Chloe shrugged and hit the button, and the Doctor turned to a series of sliding levers and adjusted a few of them. “Skylar, mind reading me that display?”

“Alpha, three, fourteen, squiggle, uhh… is that an apple or a peach?”

“Apple,” the Doctor said, even as she tapped away at a keyboard that looked like it had been stolen from a typewriter, if typewriters came in burnished chrome. “Is the squiggle sideways or vertical?”

“Diagonal, starting in the left corner.”

“Gotcha. Okay, uh, hold onto something that doesn’t move and away we go!”

Chloe and Skylar barely made it to the railings before the TARDIS lurched into flight, and the Doctor whooped and ran around, slamming buttons and sliding levers. “Geronimo!”


	3. Chapter 3

“This is madness,” Skylar said, looking a little green.

Chloe was dangling her feet off the edge of TARDIS entryway, where she was sitting beside the Doctor. “This is brilliant,” she said.

“Uh-huh. Uh, so, while you two watch the Reverse Medusa Monsters get devoured by the black hole, do you have any Roman attire?”

“I don’t usually bother with that,” the Doctor said absently. “Look, look! That’s a planet.”

“You should. Because, uh, if we stroll into Rome wearing trousers, we’re going to be labelled barbarians and enslaved. It’s bad enough that we’re all pale-skinned. We look like Celts.”

The Doctor tilted her head and nodded in a _fair enough_ sort of gesture, and said, “The wardrobe should be down the right hand hall, a left, two rights, left, first door, it’s immediately on your left.”

“Ooh, can I wear a toga?” Chloe asked.

“No!” Skylar said quickly. Then, “Women don’t wear togas.”

She shrugged, and Skylar went dashing off. Chloe looked askance at the Doctor, who was trying to pin up her hair with her sonic. “So… you were there when all those things happened? The rubbish bins, the ghosts, all that. Did you stop them, too?”

“Yeah,” said the Doctor distractedly. “Why won’t this _bloody_ thing—”

Chloe slid closer to her and held her hand out for the sonic. “Let me help,” she said.

The Doctor hesitated before handing it over, and Chloe held it up against the vast expanse of dark sky so the light of the TARDIS interior would . “What is it?”

“Sonic screwdriver,” she said.

“Huh,” said Chloe, and then slid back a bit to get a better angle, deftly twisted her dark hair around the sonic, and pinned it up. “Voila.”

“Thanks. I’m still getting used to this whole ‘female’ lark,” said the Doctor, when she turned around.

Chloe nodded. “You trans?”

“What? Oh, no! Not really. I mean, I guess I switched sexes, but I’ve never really adhered to a human _gender_ concept. My body… _changes_ … when I get close to dying. It’s hard to explain. I guess I’ve never really had to explain it to people, not until after they’ve seen me change.”

“Are you for real?” She asked, squinting curiously at the Doctor.

“I hope so,” the Doctor replied. “Otherwise the Universe is just gaslighting a bunch of people, and doesn’t that sound at least a little more implausible than me?”

Chloe laughed. “So… you’re really going to take us to Rome. Ancient Rome, with actual bloody _Romans_.”

“Actual Romans, yep. Blood may or may not be included.”

“What are you going to do about Frank?”

“Who’s Frank?” the Doctor asked curiously.

“The lorry driver,” said Chloe. “He’s probably going to be freaking out, and coming in here won’t help much.”

“Humans are very good at convincing themselves they imagined everything. I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“Um,” Chloe said.

Before she could say something that might get her kicked out of the spaceship, Skylar came crashing into the main room draped in fabric. “That wardrobe was _fascinating_!” he panted.

“Yeah? Is there an infinite number of hideous, over-large jumpers?” Chloe teased.

Skylar dropped the clothes and tugged on his own jumper, glaring at her, while the Doctor picked up pieces of clothing, wrinkling her nose.


	4. Chapter 4

“You’re going to get us enslaved,” Skylar was muttering, and Chloe sighed. The Doctor had poked around the pile of tunics and dresses for less than a minute before deciding she’d be _fine_ in trousers.

Chloe cleared her throat over Skylar’s continued grumbles, “Can we just head to Rome?”

“Yeah! Let’s go to _Rome_. Love Rome. Clever people, Romans. Funny, I’m running into a lot of Roman things lately,” the Doctor said, and then shook her head. “So! Uh, Sky, push that thing, Chloe—the lever. Yeah, that one.”

Skylar and Chloe exchanged excited looks, and then the TARDIS tilted and sent all three crashing to the floor, and Skylar laid on the warm metal floor for a moment and laughed. Chloe clamored to her feet. “Get up, lazybones, we have a spaceship to pilot.”

The Doctor grinned at them both, still dashing around the console, hitting switches and kicking pedals and sliding levers. “Green knob to the 2, Chloe. Skylar, read me the numbers on the screen.”

“406, alpha phi.”

“Kick that weird looking thing. There!”

The TARDIS became very still suddenly enough to make Skylar lose his footing again.

“He’s hopeless,” Chloe said, even as she helped him back up.

The Doctor bounded over to the doors and threw them open. “Welcome,” she said, “to Rome, 64 BCE.”

“690 _ab urbe condita_ ,” Skylar murmured, as he walked out of the spaceship.

“What are we going to do about the language barrier?” Chloe asked. “I mean, Skylar could probably rustle up a rousing speech, but it wouldn’t be vulgar Latin…”

“Oh, the TARDIS will automatically translate.” Skylar was making somewhat worrying noises that didn’t translate, and the Doctor regarded him with curiosity. “Is he okay?” she asked Chloe, as Skylar poked the stone of a nearby building and his keening sounds reached dangerously high pitch.

“This is the culmination of a lifetime spent studying an ancient culture. He’s just having a moment. We should look for Frank while Sky adjusts – do you have any way of tracking him?”

“Yeah, I should be able to trace the…” the Doctor pulled her sonic out, letting her hair tumble down around her shoulders, “…the energy from the… Oh, dear…”

Chloe followed the Doctor’s gaze, having been distracted by keeping an eye on Skylar, and saw what she’d seen: fully clothes skeletons piled haphazardly on a cart, being wheeled away. “Skylar!” Chloe said, voice rising sharply, and Skylar broke out of his reverie to come trotting over.

“What could possibly have done that?” Chloe asked.

Something tumbled off the cart when it hit a bump, and Skylar crossed to pick it up. “It’s a bulla,” he said, holding out the brass amulet.

“What does that mean?” Chloe asked.

“It means there was a child on that cart,” Skylar said grimly.

“Well,” said the Doctor. “So much for sightseeing.” 


	5. Chapter 5

"I'm just saying, while I appreciate that this is what you do, the Reverse Med—the Weeping Angels were enough excitement for one day, and that's a lot of dead bodies."

Skylar had to stride to keep up with the two women. "I'm willing to defer to the Doctor on this one," he said.

"You just want to see more of Rome."

"Guilty."

The Doctor ignored them. “Hey,” she said to a soldier. “What’s going on?”

The soldier went a bit red and backed away, leaving her looking confused.

Skylar made a sympathetic sort of clucking noise. “He doesn’t have his belt,” he said. “He’s being punished, it’s very shameful.”

“Ah, the special jingle-jangly belt, the name of which was never written down,” said Chloe wisely. “Yeah, he harps on about that a lot, Doctor, it must be important. Well, this has been a bust, why don't we just—"

The Doctor cut her off. "We'll find another person to ask.”

“Ask what?” Another soldier said.

The Doctor spun around and beamed. “Hi! I’m the Doctor, this is Chloe and Skylar.”

“Cloelia and Caelius,” Skylar said.

“Yeah,” she said, “what he said. Anyway, we’ve,” she pulled out her psychic paper and let it fall open, “we’ve been appointed by the Emperor—”

“Consuls,” hissed Skylar.

She turned to glare at him. " _Defer_ ," she reminded him. Then, “Consuls, sorry, my Latin is rusty. We’ve been appointed by the Consul to investigate these deaths, so we need any and all information you can give us.”

“Why would the Consuls appoint Celts?”

“This isn’t usually this difficult,” the Doctor grumbled.

“You were a bloke before, right?” said Chloe. “Tends to make things easier, when you’re a bloke.”

“Look,” the Doctor told the soldier, “I have the paperwork right here. Like it or not, we’re the ones sent to investigate, and unless you want to explain to the Senate why you’re resisting…”

He glanced down at the paper again, and then clasped a hand to his chest in salute. “Yes, Doctor. What do you need to know?”

“How many victims?” she asked, tucking the paper back in her pocket.

“32,” he said. “All of them, down to the bones, clothes intact. The entire household, dead.”

“I’ll need to see the house,” the Doctor said, and Chloe groaned.

“Everyone in this house died, and you want to have a slumber party here?” Chloe said, earning a strange look from the soldier.

“Yep,” said the Doctor. “Thank you – sorry, what’s your name?”

“Marcus Sosius,” he said.

“Righto, Marcus, thank you for your help. I’ll be sure to mention your name to the Consuls.”

He seemed to understand he was dismissed, because he clapped a hand to his chest again and left without question. Skylar was turning in circles, drinking in the sights of the atrium, eyes alight with wonder.

“He’s gonna take a while,” said Chloe. “Why don’t we go full Hollywood and poke around the creepy house, if we’re going to do this horror movie lark?”

“Great idea!” the Doctor said, and practically _bounced_ her way back into the house and down the corridor.

"Kind of being sarcastic," said Chloe. But she grabbed a rake that was leaning against the wall and followed at what she judged to be a safe distance. “Hey, uh, Doc?” She added.

“Yeah?” said the Doctor, glancing over her shoulder.

“What do you think did all that?” she asked.

“Well, I—”

There was a thud. Chloe clutched at the Doctor’s arm and waved the rake towards the source of the sound. “What is that?”

“Stay back,” hissed the Doctor.

They crept forward slowly, and then the Doctor yelped and jumped back as a tabby cat padded out of one of the rooms. Chloe heaved a sigh of relief. “Come here, sweetie,” she cooed, crouching to the cat’s level.

The cat slowly made its way down the hall, brushing faintly against Chloe’s outstretched fingertips but not pausing. The Doctor poked around the rooms there while Chloe watched the cat stalk away with its tail waving.

“Think that’s our terrifying alien killing people?” Chloe asked, teasing, but the Doctor shrugged.

“You never know with cats. You should’ve been there this one time in Egypt,” she added darkly. “But yeah, these rooms are clear.”

Chloe picked the rake back up. “Let’s get back to Sky before he wanders off, okay?”

“I thought you wanted to get the ‘horror movie lark’ out of the way,” said the Doctor.

“All right, so we search the house and _then_ figure out a way to stop this alien. But first we find Skylar. I always tell him, don’t wander off, but then he sees something interesting, he’s wandering off.”

The Doctor gave her a strange look. “I have the same problem,” she said.


End file.
